Jon Worth Eurobloghttp://jonworth.blogactiv.eu
EU analysis, cross-posted to BlogactivTue, 06 Feb 2018 16:04:58 +0000en-UShourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=4.9.1Transnational Lists: a small step towards a more democratic EUhttp://jonworth.blogactiv.eu/2018/02/06/transnational-lists-a-small-step-towards-a-more-democratic-eu/
Tue, 06 Feb 2018 16:04:58 +0000https://jonworth.eu/?p=10146Tomorrow – Wednesday 7th February – the plenary of the European Parliament votes on a proposal from the Parliament’s Constitutional Affairs (AFCO) committee about the rules for the 2019 European Parliament elections, now just 16 months away in May 2019. What makes this matter controversial this time is the issue […]

Tomorrow – Wednesday 7th February – the plenary of the European Parliament votes on a proposal from the Parliament’s Constitutional Affairs (AFCO) committee about the rules for the 2019 European Parliament elections, now just 16 months away in May 2019.

What makes this matter controversial this time is the issue of what to do with the 73 seats in the EP left vacant due to Brexit (Brexit is supposed to have happened two months before the elections). The proposal is to redistribute 27 of the 73 UK seats to the rest of the EU-27, evening out some discrepancies in the numbers of MEPs per country and bringing the size of the European Parliament to 705 members (down from 751) – it is all explained here.

The more controversial issue in the proposal is to agree to the principle of so-called “Transnational Lists”, a kind of cross-border constituency of MEPs. The AFCO proposal – full text here – states (my emphasis):

Article 4

Following the entry into force of the appropriate legal basis for transnational lists, a joint constituency comprising the entire territory of the Union shall be established. The terms of such joint constituency shall be stipulated in the Council Decision adopting the provisions amending the Act concerning the election of the members of the European Parliament by direct universal suffrage.

However, in case the United Kingdom is still a Member State of the Union at the beginning of the 2019-2024 parliamentary term, and if there are representatives in the European Parliament elected on transnational lists, they shall only take up their seats once the United Kingdom’s withdrawal from the Union becomes legally effective.

The number of representatives elected in the joint constituency shall be defined on the basis of the number of Member States.

There are two important points here. First whatever is voted tomorrow will not make transnational lists happen. The line on “appropriate legal basis” is a reference to Article 223 TFEU about a transnational electoral law. So an agreement tomorrow in the EP is just the start of a process to actually work out how such a transnational list would work, and that needs national ratification. Second, the final line would seem to indicate that the size of such a transnational list would initially be restricted to 27 members. In addition to the 705 MEPs elected the normal way. So less than 4% of the total. As it stands this is all relatively minor.

Ultimately what is the issue here?

The European Parliament is a democratically elected institution – there are elections every five years – but those elections operate as largely separate elections in 28 (to be 27) Member States. A CDU politician in Hessen runs under a CDU banner, a Fidesz one in Budapest under a Fidesz banner, even though both those parties are part of the European People’s Party. Same among social democrats, liberals and greens – when it comes to EP elections, national topics and national parties dominate. Only then when the MEPs end up in Brussels do they then behave in a more Europeanised manner – data from VoteWatchEurope shows that party affiliation (and not nationality) determines how votes turn out in the EP in more than 4/5 of cases.

But why do you need to make these lists to make EP elections more European? Isn’t there another way?

One might indeed hope so, but the experience to date would seem to indicate progress is at a glacial pace.

Trying to Europeanise political parties from below – through the members, and then choosing EP candidates to reflect the Europeanness of a society – has not worked yet. I’ve spent all of my adult life in political parties – in Labour in the UK and in the Grüne in Germany for the past 4 years, and party politics is the most national of national environment you can imagine. All of the rest of our lives have become more European over the past few decades – we can live where we like thanks to freedom of movement, can cross borders without showing a passport thanks to Schengen, can order goods where we like – but parties remain stuck in their national systems.

It took me more than a year as a member of the Grüne before I met the next non-German citizen. When I tell people I am a Brit who is a member I am told “Oh! Dürfen nicht-Deutsche überhaupt Mitglieder werden?” (Are non-Germans even allowed to be members?) Well, yes, of course! But non-Germans do not join – see this 2013 study on the lack of diversity in German political parties – and this applies across the board. 94 of Germany’s 96 MEPs were born in Germany and the two that weren’t are Evelyne Gebhardt (born in France, moved to Germany in 1975) and Sven Giegold (born in Las Palmas but not of non-German descent and brought up in Hannover). This does not reflect modern Germany where 4.1 million non-German EU citizens live.

So if the parties are not doing it from below, then why not experiment with a change to the rules about how the European Parliament is elected in order to begin the process of Europeanising the European Parliament elections? I’d ultimately like to see far more than 4% of the EP elected on a transnational list, but things have to start somewhere, and tomorrow’s vote in the European Parliament could be that start. Make transnational lists and hence force the parties to work together, to campaign together, and put EU-wide issues genuinely on the agenda at the European Parliament elections!

]]>Is Joseph Mifsud even a legitimate Professor?http://jonworth.blogactiv.eu/2017/11/14/is-joseph-mifsud-even-a-legitimate-professor/
Tue, 14 Nov 2017 08:09:38 +0000https://jonworth.eu/?p=10074In my major post about Joseph Mifsud I put “professor” in inverted commas. That was before I knew the extent of Mr Mifsud’s activities, but now having looked into it, it seems to me that this Professor title Mifsud has been using is highly questionable. To be clear from the […]

In my major post about Joseph Mifsud I put “professor” in inverted commas. That was before I knew the extent of Mr Mifsud’s activities, but now having looked into it, it seems to me that this Professor title Mifsud has been using is highly questionable.

To be clear from the outset: that he has a PhD is not in question. It is from Queens Belfast in 1995, and the record of it in Queens library can be found here.

So how, and when, did Mifsud go from being a lecturer with a PhD to being a Professor?

Mifsud’s first connection to a university was in Malta. Maltese Blogger Manuel Delia has looked into this here. The relevant part:

The international press is referring to Joe Mifsud as the “mystery professor” given how slippery he appears to be. One of the mysterious things about him is how actually he got his “professorship”. Malta’s University has now confirmed it is not to blame. “We are not aware that Dr Mifsud has acquired a professorship but can confirm that it was not the University which awarded him such title. In fact, as a member of the academic staff, Dr Mifsud was a Senior Lecturer when he resigned in December 2007”.

So where did Mifsud go next? He was at the Maltese Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the period 2006-2008, but academically he next ends up at EMUNI, the Euro-Mediterranean University in Piran, Slovenia.

1 December 2008 is the date of the EMUNI news story (in Slovene and English) confirming his appointment. Here is the quote from it (my emphasis):

On 26 November 2008, the General Assembly of the Euro-Mediterranean University convened at its constitutive session, where the university statute was adopted and the institutional bodies were elected. Prof. Dr. Joseph Mifsud from Malta was unanimously elected as the President of EMUNI University.

Mifsud is then regularly referred to as Prof Joseph Mifsud when working for the London Academy of Diplomacy that was first accredited by the University of East Anglia in 2012/2013. Here is a PDF from a 2013 UEA hosted event that lists him thus:

Professor Joseph Mifsud, Director of International Strategic Development of London Academy of Diplomacy, UEA London

London Academy of Diplomacy was then accredited by the University of Stirling in 2015, before then being rolled into that University. Mifsud is still now listed by Stirling as “Professor Joseph Mifsud – Professorial Teaching Fellow”.

But we still do not know how Mifsud became a Professor. EMUNI, and then UEA and Stirling better have some good explanations!

]]>Gianni Pittella and his “caro amico” Joseph Mifsudhttp://jonworth.blogactiv.eu/2017/11/05/gianni-pittella-and-his-caro-amico-joseph-mifsud/
Sun, 05 Nov 2017 13:19:34 +0000https://jonworth.eu/?p=10054The world has been asking themselves who the “mystery professor” Joseph Mifsud is. The British press – Byline and Carole Cadwalladr in The Guardian – have been connecting Mifsud to Alok Sharma and Boris Johnson. Mifsud has good Russian connections and is supposed to be the person who facilitated the […]

Pittella talks about Mifsud thus: “Joseph è un mio caro amico, non posso crederlo coinvolto nel Russiagate” (“Joseph is my dear friend, I can not believe he is involved in Russiagate“) – in an Italian news story here. This is more than people who happen to meet at events.

And so why is this especially significant? Because Pittella went and campaigned for Clinton and attended the DNC in 2016. Him doing so was even written up in Time Magazine here.

We do not know the full siginifcance of all of this. I am laying out the connections here. We do not know what Pittella was doing for LAD exactly, or if he was paid for that. We do not know if he was privy to information passed from Russia to Mifsud. But if a few meetings between Alok Sharma and one with Boris Johnson are of interest in the UK, surely a much closer relationship with Pittella ought to be of interest in Brussels. Who, I wonder, might now like to ask the questions to work all of this out?

]]>Joseph Mifsud. The “professor” in the Papadopoulos – Manafort revelations.http://jonworth.blogactiv.eu/2017/10/31/joseph-mifsud-the-professor-in-the-papadopoulos-manafort-revelations/
Tue, 31 Oct 2017 16:29:27 +0000https://jonworth.eu/?p=9974I’m not really into United States politics, but that a Maltese professor by the name of Joseph Mifsud was somehow connected to the Papadopoulos/Manafort revelations caught my eye. So who is this Joseph Mifsud guy? The New York Times tried to find out – and did not get very far. […]

What about where he worked? NYT says he was associated with London Academy of Diplomacy. There is a Facebook Page for that with 183 likes that has not been updated since 2013. The Academy has no Wikipedia page either, and when you Google for it it turns out it has no website either, except this weird page made by some former collaborator of Mifsud’s, Nabil Ayal. Talk about retro!

The 2016 Stirling biography, and the cached LCILP biography, give us a list of other organisations Mifsud has been involved with (in addition to Stirling and LCILP). Here I list each, and see what I can find about his role in each of them:

University of East Anglia – 5 PDFs on UEA’s website. This one says “Director of International Strategic Development of the London Academy of Diplomacy, University of East Anglia London Campus and the Director of International Relations at the Link Campus University in Rome”. We know UEA closed its London Campus though, so I think this all holds together, even if what Mifsud actually did at UEA remains unclear.

EMUNI in Piran in Slovenia – he’s a former President, apparently – here’s what Google finds. Some references to Mifsud, but you would think a former President of a University might still have a biography on the site of a University? Not here.

Back in his native Malta he is supposed to have taught at University of Malta, and worked at Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Malta, and at Ministry of Education in Malta (as Chief Advisor between 1996 and 1998). The problem here is that Mifsud is a very common Maltese name… Searching the University of Malta finds a Dr Joseph Mifsud who works on sports law, and a Magistrate Joseph Mifsud who, I think, must be the Magistrate generally known as Joe Mifsud. In the Ministry of Foreign Affairs you find a Driver / Maintenance Man called Joseph Mifsud (this PDF), and one mention of the correct Mifsud (but in his role in Slovenia). In the Ministry of Education we find other Mifsuds – one who is a school teacher, and our Driver / Maintenance Man again twice. This Driver chap seems more famous in Maltese administration than this Professor with the grand CV!

Lastly, Mifsud is supposed to have studied at the University of Malta, the University of Padova and at the Queens University Belfast. Malta I have already covered, and searching the Uni Padova and Queens sites reveals nothing. A little more information about his academic background, and that he was born in 1960, can be found in this PDF from a European Parliament hearing. Note that none of his three degrees are in law. And I cannot find any reference to any papers he has ever written in Google Scholar.

So what can we learn from this?

First, any cursory glance at all of this shows that all of the parts of Mifsud’s background do not seem to really all add up. Did Papadopoulos not even look into these issues? Second, two British universities – UEA and especially Stirling – seem to have some questions to answer. Detail on exactly what Mifsud did at either would be handy. Third, all of this just scratches the surface, pulling together publicly available information. Even just that tells quite a tale!

]]>Ranked 5th in the Euractiv-ZN #EUInfluencer league table – but what does this mean?http://jonworth.blogactiv.eu/2017/10/20/ranked-5th-in-the-euractiv-zn-euinfluencer-league-table-but-what-does-this-mean/
Fri, 20 Oct 2017 10:57:59 +0000https://jonworth.eu/?p=9930Every one in a while a Brussels media outlet or public affairs firm tries to show they are digital-aware by publishing a kind of league table of something to do with social media in the EU bubble. Yesterday it was Euractiv and ZN’s turn – they held an event called […]

Every once in a while a Brussels media outlet or public affairs firm tries to show they are digital-aware by publishing a kind of league table of something to do with social media in the EU bubble. Yesterday it was Euractiv and ZN’s turn – they held an event called #EUInfluencer, put up a methodology, and came up with a league table. This is it:

It’s good to be ranked 5th in the table, not least because the four ahead of me are one of the best known journalists in Brussels, two Commission spokespeople, and Berlaymonster!

How did I end up getting ranked fifth here?

First, the time you put into writing about the EU and tweeting about it, ultimately pays off and people do eventually notice. Second, being independent actually works – you can say some things that others would never dare say. That’s my explanation for why people tend to follow what I write here and on Twitter. Third, without my blog and Twitter I would probably be stuck in some tedious regular job somewhere – although this blog and Twitter earn me no money directly, without them I would not be able to do most of the work contracts I do as a freelancer. Fourth, influencing the EU is not dependent on being actually present in Brussels, which is a point I made in this short video I sent over to ZN for the event yesterday that I couldn’t attend in person:

But what is the actual point of such league tables or assessments?

There it gets more murky. Yes, ZN published a methodology, but as ever some people criticised it. To try to assess non-politicians was I think interesting, because to have added all of the politicians in Brussels would have meant only they occupied all the top positions. But a point a friend made to me on Facebook strikes me as very relevant: surely there are senior people in Brussels who wield more influence offline, but have not yet managed to leverage social media adeuqately. Essentially the opposite applies to me – I might have some success making online conversations happen, but my problem is I cannot then necessarily make change take place in the real world.

So in short, thank you ZN and Euractiv. No ranking can ever please everyone, but at least this one is clearer than some others. Plus the top 40 are at the very least an interesting bunch to follow on Twitter (ZN has a Twitter list of them all here).

]]>Catalan referendum: violence is never the answer, but politicians on both sides are getting it wronghttp://jonworth.blogactiv.eu/2017/10/02/catalan-referendum-violence-is-never-the-answer-but-politicians-on-both-sides-are-getting-it-wrong/
Mon, 02 Oct 2017 21:20:18 +0000https://jonworth.eu/?p=9810I’ve spent the last three days in Barcelona, observing the 1st October independence referendum, not in any sort of official capacity, but as an interested politics nerd. Political tourism if you like. After my fascinating trip to Scotland prior to the independence referendum there in 2014, it was obvious that […]

I’ve spent the last three days in Barcelona, observing the 1st October independence referendum, not in any sort of official capacity, but as an interested politics nerd. Political tourism if you like. After my fascinating trip to Scotland prior to the independence referendum there in 2014, it was obvious that seeing Catalonia’s referendum first hand was going to be a fascinating experience. So it proved, and this blog entry tries to sum up my impressions – both of how all this felt on the ground, and how this relates to the wider political context. All my tweets about the issue can be found here.

Before I get started here, two caveats: this issue is so polarised that there is no way any article can please everyone. If you disagree, please do so in a civilised manner in the comments, or on Twitter, but – understandably – that criticism will come. Second, the referendum story is so long and multifaceted that no single blog post can do it justice – I am going to have to skip nuance in some places here. If there are other things I ought to add to give that context likewise leave them in comments.

So anyway, here goes.

The weeks running up to the referendum, and the immediate aftermath, have been a monstrous blame game. The public statements from politicians and commentators have generally fallen in behind the two camps. I am going to try to avoid this sort of blaming.

Take the question of whether the Catalan Referendum yesterday was illegal. Yes, it was, according to the Spanish constitution. Was the Guardia Civil shooting rubber bullets illegal? Yes, that was too, according to a 2013 Catalan law that banned rubber bullets. Websites about the referendum were shut down by the Spanish government – is doing that even legal? The electoral roll used yesterday was not the most up to date one, as the Catalans were not allowed to make use of the most recent register – that is not OK for a democratic vote. The Catalan Parliament did not follow its own procedures to pass the law on 6th September to hold the poll.

Argue about this all you like, but neither side is in the clear about the legality (or not) of what happened yesterday. That politicians in a mature democracy are not capable of managing to hold a legal referendum is ridiculous. Yes, doing so might need the Spanish Constitution to be changed, but that 1978 document should not be considered some sort of legal trump card behind which Rajoy can hide.

The next question: was the referendum democratic? This too it is open to question. That more than 2 million people braved violence to go to the polling stations to vote was extraordinary, and showed considerable commitment from those in favour of independence. But this referendum – in terms of its measures against fraud (problems with the register as mentioned, plus allowing people to vote in other polling stations if their station was closed or ballot boxes seized) this was a highly questionable vote. Everything at the polling stations I visited was as well organised is it could be, bearing in mind the circumstances, but those circumstances were not those to allow calm contemplation.

There was no real No campaign to speak of, and Reporters Without Borders criticised the reporting environment for journalists. The determination of the Catalans to actually vote was mixed up with the demand for independence itself – and this is why the result was so skewed – 90% Yes, but on a 42% turnout. Those opposed to independence stayed at home. Opponents of independence could have voted, pro-independence people told me, and I suppose this is true, but legitimating the referendum legitimated the call for independence in some way (the two were not separate), so I understand their reticence.

Defending the Centre Cívic Casal de Sarrià

Having said all that, in some way this was an extraordinary democratic moment – seeing Catalans of all ages self organise to defend the polling station at Centre Cívic Casal de Sarrià when there was rumour of a possible police raid is one of the most extraordinary political acts I have even experienced first hand.

Anti Independence Protestor

The determination to vote if anything burns harder than the determination for independence, and it most definitely is more widespread. “We would vote in a legal referendum” two anti-independence old friends of mine said, “and we want a legal referendum.” Those people did not vote yesterday. I even chanced upon an anti-independence referendum the day before the poll in Via Laietana and even that was festive and peaceful.

All of this means that Mariano Rajoy’s decision to be tough on referendum day itself was a ridiculous move, for it meant he lost any moral high ground in the eyes of the those outside Spain. Using brutal force against your own people in these circumstances is clearly wrong. Yes, that might shore up his support within the Partido Popular, but ultimately this was an incorrect call. Violence is never the answer in these circumstances, and here more than 900 were injured, and some of the footage is horrid to watch.

As well as its moral repugnance, I fail to see what sending in the Guardia Civil actually achieved – the Catalan Government stated that 319 of the 2315 polling stations were closed by police, meaning in the vast majority of polling stations voting still proceeded and was slow but serene. Without the brutal police reaction, and relying only on the actions prior to the referendum day itself, I would rather suspect that turnout would not have been much different, and pretty certainly not over the crucial hurdle of 50% of eligible voters backing independence. In a rather Comical Ali style phrase, Rajoy even stated that there was no independence referendum and commended the serene reaction of the Guardia Civil. There is some serious cognitive dissonance going on in Madrid here, a willful lack of understanding of what is happening on the ground in Catalonia.

Ultimately then I am left with the impression that politicians from both sides have been getting this wrong, ever since the 2010 decision of the Spanish Constitutional Court to overturn parts of the Statute of Autonomy of Catalonia. Since then politicians on both sides have retrenched – on the Spanish side (and in the Partido Popular in particular), politicians have sought refuge in legal rather than political arguments against holding a legal referendum about the future of Catalonia, or finding ways to grant Catalonia more (fiscal) autonomy. On the Catalan side, rejection of the Statute process ultimately pushed the CDC party from a position favouring a referendum to a more outright position favouring independence, a position that hardened so much so as to make it more or less the only purpose of Puigdemont’s administration. This is what makes calls for dialogue now seem so forlorn – the better time for dialogue was a decade ago, but instead the political pressures have been mounting on both sides for years. Neither side has been capable of finding a way to decrease the tensions. So while I can understand the motivations of politicians on each side to behave as they did, their behaviour has ultimately brought the Spanish state to the brink of a constitutional crisis. The approach of politicians on both sides has hence been wrong in my view; they are even more polarised than the population is.

Poster in Gracía

And so back to the street. And the conversations with different people over the past three days – old and young, pro- and anti-independence, locals and international residents looking on. Yes, the international media was right to report on the violence, but aside from that the rest of this referendum was very civic, good natured, genuinely participative. This does not feel like a society on the brink of rupture. Individual Catalans are surely people you can negotiate with, are open to collaboration and compromise. But the deaf ear to Catalans’ concerns in Madrid has hardened the Catalan side, and conversely there is rather little solidarity for the Catalans’ predicament in the rest of Spain.

Within the next 24 48 hours Puigdemont the Catalan Parliament will apparently declare the independence of Catalonia, a decision that would be ill advised in my view, due to the questions that hang over the legitimacy of the referendum. Yet having got this far, can Puigdemont turn back now? And if Catalonia does declare independence, then Rajoy may seek to trigger Article 155 of the Spanish Constitution, resulting in direct rule of Catalonia from Madrid. Such a decision would inflame matters further in Catalonia and would lead to an extraordinary level of protest. But politicians on both sides have escalated matters until now, so why would the coming days be any different?

So are the faultlines and contradictions here. How the failure of a reasonable attempt to secure greater autonomy has pushed politicians of both sides to polarise the debate, leading Spain to the verge of a constitutional crisis out of which there are no simple answers. While in the mean time grass roots politics is amongst the most lively and participative anywhere in Europe.

[Update 3.10.17, 0015]
A friend on Facebook has pointed out an error in the text, namely it is the Catalan Parliament that would vote on a declaration of independence – Puigdemont cannot make that declaration himself. That decision has also been pushed back a day. The text above has been corrected accordingly.

]]>May’s Florence Speech: an impossible balancing acthttp://jonworth.blogactiv.eu/2017/09/18/mays-florence-speech-an-impossible-balancing-act/
Mon, 18 Sep 2017 12:36:47 +0000https://jonworth.eu/?p=9776Theresa May is due to give a big Brexit speech this coming Friday 22nd September in Florence. With Boris Johnson having jumped the gun and penned his own Brexit vision a couple of days ago (fisked by me here), and with frustration on the EU side growing about the slow […]

May could try to set out a speech that would appease her own side, namely her rowdy Cabinet Ministers, her even rowdier backbenchers, and the DUP propping up her government – all ready to scream betrayal at any moment. I am not even sure there is a line that can appease everyone from Jacob Rees Mogg to Anna Soubry, and from Boris Johnson to Philip Hammond, but the sort of direction that might just keep all of them happy would continue the line of hard-ish Brexit, leaving the Single Market and Customs Union, and doing this with a transition period up until 2021 or so – not beyond the next UK general election. She would need to say something on the financial settlement, but trying to keep the UK’s commitments as time constrained as possible. Plus the Tories are going to look at the numbers and worry about the billions, but not care what the money would be for.

The problem is that such a speech would be met with blunt opposition from the EU side, and especially in Ireland. For the EU side has its three areas where progress has to be made before the UK can advance to the second stage of the negotiations on the future trade relationship, and will assess those at a summit in October. These three areas are citizens rights, the financial settlement, and the Irish border issue, and the UK agreed to that staggering of negotiations back in June. The EU sees the UK’s position on citizens rights as not adequately generous, and would like to see May loosen her stance. On the financial settlement the EU side wants answers to what the UK would continue to see financed, and when, before anyone actually comes up with numbers, and is categorically opposed to seeing the March 2019 Brexit date as being the date when payments must stop. The UK approach sketched out here by Laura Kuenssberg would almost certainly not work.

And as if that were all easy, we then come to the even more complex issue – one that Boris failed to mention in his essay – the Irish border. Fintan O’Toole elegantly sets out what is at stake on the border issue here, and May has to date said little about preserving the politics of the Good Friday Agreement. Further, if we take this down to the level of practicalities, what can May offer? The UK government’s Northern Ireland paper emphasises an interim period, and a one-off change to a new customs regime, are likely (excerpt here – thanks Pawel). But what then? What is the long term solution? And would the EU and – importantly – the Republic of Ireland be content with something so unknown at the end of an interim period? I doubt it. Proposing some sort of special customs and or Single Market system for Northern Ireland might be acceptable to the EU side, but the DUP on the UK side will never accept that.

So in short: if what she says is to be acceptable to the Tory Party, the EU can never live with it. And were she to advance something the EU side could live with, the chances are that even if the Tories could cope with it, the DUP almost certainly could not.

There is of course a third option – obfuscate and prevaricate, which is what the Lancaster House speech back in January did. A similar accusation could also be made about Boris Johnson’s essay. If the reality is hard or complicated, just skip it, and dress yourself up in the comfort blanket of nationalism instead, also knowing that your allies in the right wing press will make you feel good regardless. The problem is that with the Article 50 clock ticking, the danger of the EU side stating there is not sufficient progress in negotiations to move to the second stage, and businesses getting tetchy about Brexit, makes such an approach highly irresponsible. Worse still would be to take the “a bad deal is worse than no deal” line out of the drawer, but that I now consider unlikely (although Fabian Zuleeg takes a more pessimistic view in this EPC paper).

However we look at it, May’s speech is an impossible balancing act. There can be no good outcome.

]]>Tories breaking the law on how they replace MEPs leaving the European Parliament?http://jonworth.blogactiv.eu/2017/06/26/tories-breaking-the-law-on-how-they-replace-meps-leaving-the-european-parliament/
Mon, 26 Jun 2017 13:08:58 +0000https://jonworth.eu/?p=9656A story caught my eye in The Guardian this morning. “Former candidates sue Conservative party after missing out on MEP posts” it is titled. Remember that MEPs are elected on regional lists, and each party puts up as many candidates as there are to be MEPs elected in a particular […]

A story caught my eye in The Guardian this morning. “Former candidates sue Conservative party after missing out on MEP posts” it is titled. Remember that MEPs are elected on regional lists, and each party puts up as many candidates as there are to be MEPs elected in a particular region. The Guardian story explains two cases where the behaviour of the Conservative Party looks open to question in how it allocates vacant MEP seats, but the story does not say exactly what the Tories are supposed to have done wrong. Here I will try to explain that.

But first of all, a quick recap of the two cases.

The first is that of Alex Story, a Tory MEP candidate in Yorkshire and The Humber who was number 2 on his party’s list at the 2014 EP elections (Yorkshire & The Humber 2014 results here). Timothy Kirkhope resigned to take a seat in the House of Lords, but instead of appointing Story, the Tory Party instead went for the number 3 on the list – John Procter. Procter was appointed as a MEP on 17th November 2016 – he can be found in the list of incoming MEPs on the EP’s website, and his EP bio is here. Story explains his side of things here.

The second and more recent case is that of Belinda Don in Scotland. The sole Tory MEP for Scotland, Ian Duncan, is in the process of resigning in order to go to the House of Lords. Belinda Don was number 2 on the Scottish list in 2014 (results here), but the Tories are trying to appoint the candidate fifth on the list (Ian McGill), skipping not only Don but Nosheena Mobarik and Jamie Gardiner as well. However so far the process on the Brussels side has not happened – Duncan is not listed as an outgoing MEP at the time of writing. More details about this case can be found in The Scotsman here.

The problem here is it looks to me that the Tories are not actually respecting UK election law in what they are doing. Take this with a pinch of salt as I am not a lawyer, but this is how it seems to me to work.

The rules determining how candidates can be replaced in light of a vacancy in the European Parliament for UK constituencies are laid out in Section 5 of the European Parliament Elections Act 2002 (as amended). The text of that section can be read here. The relevant part is this:

Filling vacant seats

(1)The Secretary of State must by regulations make provision prescribing the procedure to be followed when a seat is or becomes vacant.

(2)The regulations may—

(a)include provision requiring a by-election to be held in specified circumstances (and provision modifying section 2 in its application to by-elections);

(b)require a seat last filled from a party’s list of candidates to be filled, in specified circumstances, from such a list (without a by-election). [my emphasis]

So then we need to find the relevant Regulations. They are The European Parliamentary Elections Regulations 2004 – text here. Part 3, Reg 83. that I quote here is the relevant bit*:

Filling of vacancies from a registered party’s list

83.—(1) On receipt of a notice under regulation 82(4), the returning officer shall ascertain from the list submitted by the registered party named in the notice (“the relevant list”) the name and address of the person whose name appears highest on that list (“the first choice”) [my emphasis], disregarding the name of any person who has been returned as an MEP or who has died.

(2) The returning officer shall take such steps as appear to him to be reasonable to contact the first choice to ask whether he will—

(a)state in writing that he is willing and able to be returned as an MEP, and

(b)deliver a certificate signed by or on behalf of the nominating officer of the registered party which submitted the relevant list stating that he may be returned as that party’s MEP.

(3) Paragraph (4) applies where—

(a)within such period as the returning officer considers reasonable—

(i)he decides that the steps he has taken to contact the first choice have been unsuccessful, or

(ii)he has not received from the first choice the statement and certificate referred to in paragraph (2), or

(b)the first choice has—

(i)stated in writing that he is not willing or able to be returned as an MEP, or

(ii)failed to deliver the certificate referred to in paragraph (2)(b).

Putting this in simple terms: the Returning Officer shall contact the first choice – i.e. the first non-elected candidate – and only if that person declines the post or is unable to reply within a reasonable amount of time shall further candidates be contacted.

Yesterday, finally, my first official communication with the party. A curt letter from the nominating officer (who must certify my position as MEP) – he has checked the list and could not provide a certificate because I was no longer on it.

This refers to Story no longer being an approved candidate for the Conservative Party, something that he was in 2014 – which is what is surely crucial here as that was when the European Election actually happened. I also presume the Tory Party in Scotland is now going through a similar procedure – Don seems to want the job and will not stand aside, so her case might go the way of Story’s, while the intentions of Nosheena Mobarik and Jamie Gardiner are currently publicly unknown.

I cannot see how the behaviour towards Story can be legal (and the Returning Officer in Yorkshire & The Humber must have serious questions to answer!), and it looks like the issue is repeating now in Scotland – where the party aims to jump over three candidates, not just the one in Story’s case.

Credits: thank you @allnutt_eu, @martinned81 and @mbimmler for sending me legal documents to help with the writing of this blog entry! But any errors in here are mine alone.

[UPDATE 26.6.17, 1525] * – wording of this sentence was amended, correcting how to refer to a Regulation

[UPDATE 26.6.17, 1530] A different view from Michael Bimmler in this tweet. Question then is what grounds a party could have for failing to issue this certificate?

]]>4th June 2017: Ferme Olivier Cemetery (Part 2)http://jonworth.blogactiv.eu/2017/06/07/4th-june-2017-ferme-olivier-cemetery-part-2/
Wed, 07 Jun 2017 09:03:42 +0000https://jonworth.eu/?p=9635(Part 1 of this remembrance story explaining the background can be found here. This blog entry recounts the trip.) The train from Kortrijk to Poperinge rumbles its way through little villages and across the potato fields and pastures of West Flanders. Past the obligatory Frituur beside each small station. Cows munch […]

(Part 1 of this remembrance story explaining the background can be found here. This blog entry recounts the trip.)

The train from Kortrijk to Poperinge rumbles its way through little villages and across the potato fields and pastures of West Flanders. Past the obligatory Frituur beside each small station. Cows munch grass. Sheep stand under old oak trees. And then there is a cemetery, its white headstones stark in the sun. And another one. And when arriving into Poperinge station a before-and-after picture showing how that very spot looked in World War I. There is even an app (Android, iOS) containing further images. You cannot avoid remnants of the war here.

The arrangement was that my parents would drive from the UK that Sunday 4th July, and I would take the train from Brussels, and we would rendezvous in Poperinge main square. It turned out that a 20k running race (and subsequent road blocks!) made that plan rather more complex than it might have been, but we eventually managed to meet and to find a way out of Poperinge towards Elverdinge and the Ferme Olivier Cemetery.

There, in Plot 3, Row D, Grave 6, towards the far end of the cemetery from the entrance, is the grave of Hubert Bertram Hancock. Uncle Bert as he had been known to my mother’s family.

The cemetery itself is immaculate and sober, and somehow part of the landscape of the village, sandwiched between a field of lumbering cows, a field of crops, the road, and some houses. Flowers and other plants grow beside the gravestones, many of which seem to have recently been repaired to make sure they are still legible. Fallen soldiers from different regiments are grouped together.

I was keen to find out more about how my parents had taken it upon themselves to find out what had happened to Bert. The process, it turned out, started with the death of my grandfather and my grandmother then sorting out papers and records. A colleague of my father’s at the time was a former soldier and he helped with the efforts in 1992 to work out where Bert was buried. My parents visited the cemetery for the first time in 1993. Bert’s brother – my great grandfather – as a miner and later a railwayman – was spared from serving due to the industry in which he worked.

We sat in the summer sunshine beside the grave looking over all the papers my parents had brought with them. Among the papers my mother had saved a postcard I had written from the cemetery in 2002 when I had visited the Ferme Olivier on my own while living in Brussels. A picture of that card is below – its words are as true now as they were then.

We left a message in the visitors’ book of the cemetery alongside others who had also made centenary visits to Flanders Fields, and finally planted some heather beside the gravestone. 100 years Bert had been buried here.

That then concludes this personal remembrance trip to Ferme Olivier. But we must never forget.

]]>4th June 2017: my trip to West Flanders for a very personal remembrance (Part 1)http://jonworth.blogactiv.eu/2017/06/01/4th-june-2017-my-trip-to-west-flanders-for-a-very-personal-remembrance-part-1/
Thu, 01 Jun 2017 13:52:00 +0000https://jonworth.eu/?p=9619This coming Sunday I will travel from my home in Berlin to West Flanders in Belgium for a very special and personal act of remembrance. I will meet my parents there – they are making the trip from the UK. Our precise destination is the Ferme Olivier Cemetery, between Poperinge […]

This coming Sunday I will travel from my home in Berlin to West Flanders in Belgium for a very special and personal act of remembrance. I will meet my parents there – they are making the trip from the UK. Our precise destination is the Ferme Olivier Cemetery, between Poperinge and Ieper, the resting place of Private Hubert Bertram Hancock. Hubert, or Bert, was my great grandfather’s brother (on my mother’s side), who fell aged 32 in Belgium on 4th June 1917. We are marking the centenary of his death.

As part of the overall war effort Bert was insignificant. He was one of thousands to die on Flanders fields. 410 others are buried at Ferme Olivier beside him. But he was a brother, a son, a part of a family, his loss a very personal and individual tragedy. As every loss in war or otherwise always is.

Cause of death – click to enlarge image

Information about how he died is sketchy – the official cause of death was “Died of Wounds” (see the scan to the right), and it was not until 1992 that anyone in my family even looked properly into the issue. The South Wales Borderers, his Regiment, referred us to a book about the regiment and the activity near Messines (today Mesen in Flanders) around the date of his death as a new front was constructed, although we do not know for sure if he was one of the men who died in its construction.

Why does any of this matter any more?

First, as war has not really touched anyone in my generation in Western Europe it is vital to remember and never forget the pain, the misery, the suffering, the loss – on all sides – in conflict. How this touched my own family is the most potent and sobering way to recall this.

Second, I today live in the country whose soldiers probably killed Bert that day a century ago. He fell in a country I have also called home in the past, a place I still regularly visit and work. And all of that is thankfully normal. That is progress.

Third, the failure of the international institutions established after World War I was partly to blame for World War II – and it seems that the institutions created after that to help guarantee peace in Europe have done a better job. Yet as Trump in the USA calls those very institutions into question, and Brexit threatens to move the UK away from its European partners, the endurance of those institutions looks a little shaky just now. That’s worrying.

I will write a further blog entry on Sunday with pictures from the cemetery. For now take a moment to pause and reflect. And if you have never looked up what happened to your relatives killed in war I encourage you to do so. It is a melancholy and sobering experience.